GARY HAMEL is visiting professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He has authored twenty articles for the Harvard Business Review and published five books with Harvard Business Review Press, including The Future of Management (2007). The Wall Street Journal ranked Hamel as the world’s most influential business thinker, while the Financial Times labeled him a “management innovator without peer.” He lives in Northern California.

Ron’s Questions: Segment One

Gary, I just finished your book, Humanocracy, shortly after it came out, I got it the day it came out. And I absolutely loved it, as I loved your book, The Future of Management book. So I'm going to ask you the cliche question from a host that makes it sound like he didn't read the book. What is your book about?
Before we dive in, Gary, I just have to ask you this, too. Is this book a logical extension of The Future of Management? Has your thinking kind of evolved over the years?
Because one of the things you say is once a company hits a certain threshold in size, that bureaucracy starts growing faster than the organization itself.
You talk about bureaucracy being a tax on human effort and how we need to get rid of this. And I love that you've quoted the late Carl Deutsch, I think, who observed that “[Power] is the ability to afford not to learn.” And I thought that was great. Are you confident this can be done?
I love this line, you say “America is a country that was invented by geniuses to be run by idiots. Bureaucracies, by contrast, seem to have been designed by idiots to be run by geniuses.” And I just love that because you're right, creativity is not narrowly distributed. Just look at YouTube, and Wikipedia, and Linux.
Excellent. Well, Gary, unfortunately, we're up against our break. This is just flying by. But this is great. Thank you so much.

Ed’s Questions: Segment Two

On The Soul of Enterprise today is Professor Gary Hamel. The book is Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside of Them. And Gary, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about part three of your book, which is the principles over practice. First of all, talk about why it's important that we look at these companies not so much by their unique practices, but by their belief systems instead.
Ron and I have this saying can you imagine if you ever described your marriage as efficient? How repulsive that would be? I love Ed, he's very efficient. But I want to ask you, there's so many great things in there. But I want to turn your attention to the power of markets and talk a little bit about this, because I think this is quite fascinating. Ron and I, about 10 years ago, came across the notion of the prediction market, and how that could be used inside organizations. And we did a couple of sessions on it. And I’ve got tell you, it fell completely flat. No one knew what the hell we were talking about, like why this would even be a thing. But the experimentation that you've seen, it's starting to work, it's starting to get some uptick, isn't it?
Yeah, that was a pull quote I had from the book as well, that's a great concept.

Ron’s Questions: Third Segment

Welcome back, everybody. We're here with Professor Gary Hamel, the author of Humanocracy. And Gary, one objection I can hear and you actually anticipated this in the book. But I can hear somebody saying “How can you have a unity of purpose without unity of command?” What's your response?
You know, we hear all the time that people hate change, they're fearful of change, they're against change, and you think that's rubbish. You call us change addicts?
Max Planck made that famous remark about progress happens funeral by funeral. Do you think the old guard, the old current command and control will give up the power and allow this change to happen?
It reminds me how the two ladies [Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler] who started the Results-only Work Environment (ROWE) at Best Buy. They just went out and did it. They didn't ask for permission. [Listen to our two episodes with Jody Thompson, #24 and #287].
Al; right, well, like you say, Gary, we created this bureaucracy and we can we can undo it and replace it with something better. Unfortunately, we're up against our next break. Ed is going to take you home during the last segment, Gary, but I just wanted to say thank you. What an honor to be able to chat with you. As a longtime fan, keep up the great work, please. You're needed.

Ed’s Questions: Segment Four

And, folks, while we are doing our best to try to get to some of the great nuggets in Gary Hamel’s book, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, we are only scratching the surface. So we really implore you, go buy this book and read it. Don't just buy it, but actually read it, because we think there's some great things that you can do in your organization. I want to turn your attention, Gary, to a subject with regard to the many of the folks who listen to this show. It's more accountants, lawyers, and people in professional services, and even with smaller organizations. What advice do you have for people who are in smaller businesses to avoid some of these traps that the large organizations get ensnared in?
All right, well, we've got about 90 seconds left or so and I wanted to ask you where can people get your book—obviously at Amazon, all that stuff—but where can they learn more about what you're doing?

A Note From Gary Hamel:

So certainly, please follow me on Twitter @profhamel. You can find me on LinkedIn for sure. Humanocracy.com is where you can learn more about the book. And I hasten to add there's a free course there, about four and a half hours. And if there's something you want to ask me, I'm Gary@Garyhamel.com, it is as simple as that.

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits.

Bonus episode 313 - California Crazy is a special kind of crazy. Here are a few links we discussed: